Ransom and Redeem
by theghettocyborg
Summary: Alternate ending to X2. Kurt realizes there is one more prisoner to rescue before the dam falls.


Kurt gently lowered Xavier into a seat in the Blackbird and helped him strap himself in while Storm pried Rogue out of the pilot seat. "Thank you," Xavier murmured with his voice still fuzzy from the effects of Stryker's poison. 

Something in the Professor's tone tipped a balance in Kurt's mind; he remembered another voice, quiet thanks dragged from a rough throat. He stood up straighter, his eyes wide and his heart suddenly hammering. "There's someone else! I need to get him!"

He rushed toward the open ramp at the back of the plane, past Jean Grey and the man with covered eyes (who must be the Scott she'd talked about last night); past the children he'd gotten out of the cell.

"Kurt, where are you going?" Jean called, and the weariness in her voice tugged at him.

"I'll be back so fast, I swear… I just can't leave him underground."

He leapt and 'ported. A few jumps brought him to the entrance of the Alkali Lake complex, and one last jump took him inside. He went back down the hallway where he and Storm had found the children, into the depths that carried a sickening sense of déjà vu.

He peered down into one, two, three, four empty cells and hoped he wasn't chasing some sort of fever dream. The fifth cell held a hunched man wrapped in a rough blanket. That and the dirty green hair sticking out of the folds on top made him look like a boulder with a cap of lichen. He looked up and fixed on Kurt with huge, surprised yellow eyes and leapt strait up. He clung with his hands on either side of the grate that separated him and Kurt. His feet were chained close together with metal shackles.

"Can you get me out?" It was the voice Kurt remembered, a gravelly whisper that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a barrel.

"Yes! Get down." He dropped to the floor and Kurt teleported in. "The chain, I think I can do something… stay still."

Kurt wedged one fingertip in each of the two links that connected the short chain to the shackles and made himself imagine he was wearing them as rings. Then, concentrating hard, he teleported a few feet across the room and brought the links with him.

The ends of the chain clinked to the floor and the man took a deep, excited breath. "Brilliant!" He scooped the chain from the floor and wound it around his knuckles. "Let's go."

Kurt teleported them up into the hall and they ran toward the exit. The other man kept looking around with fearful amazement, as if he expected Stryker to pop out of a door at any moment with a taser and a smug smile. No one stopped them. Kurt knew there had been soldiers here, and he tried not to think about the reasons for the lack of pursuit. Though both were shoeless, neither man slowed when they ran out of the door and into the snow. Kurt wrapped his tail around the other man's waist and led him toward the Blackbird. He didn't want to 'port someone else again today if he didn't have to.

Kurt half pulled the other man up the ramp and into the Blackbird. "We made it," he said with relief. He was about to add a "Thank God" when he noticed that his charge was crouched defensively with his chain-wrapped fist raised in warning. His eyes seemed to be locked on Jean Grey.

"I thought you said this was a rescue."

"It is! We are all going somewhere safe. These are good people."

Abruptly, the other man started laughing. It had an undercurrent of hysteria that did nothing to ease the tension in the cabin.

"Shh! Stop that, breath…" He hauled the green haired man into a seat and started to manhandle him into the safety harness. Wolverine was standing belligerently behind him, and there was some sort of problem in the cockpit, but he tried to ignore both those things. "We're going to be ok. We're going somewhere safe." _Please God, don't make me a liar_.

There were footsteps behind him, and Wolverine moved out of his peripheral vision. "Jean!" Scott was shouting at the closing ramp, "Come back!"

There was the sound of switches being flipped and the plane started to rumble. It felt like they might even be lifting. Scott rushed back up the aisle to the cockpit. "No! We're not going anywhere!"

Kurt stared out of the windshield and willed himself to be on the other side even as Wolverine turned to him and growled "Get out there, go get her!" As hard as he tried, he wasn't going anywhere. His jaw tightened with quickly rising frustration. He was sure he had the strength left, why wasn't it working?

"Scott," Xavier said suddenly in a voice that was clear and thin and not quite his own, "It's the only way..."

Scott left Storm to keep fighting the controls and knelt by Xavier. "No, Jean, come back."

It seemed that everyone except Storm was frozen, and then Kurt felt his rescuee wriggle out of his seat and past him. He stood before a storage hatch marked Emergency Equipment, opened it quickly and removed an armful of orange thing. He came back to Kurt and put the orange thing in Kurt's hands. "This is a life raft; you pull this thing to open it."

Xavier stopped speaking and everyone went silent. "She's gone," Wolverine choked out just as the green haired man turned to Xavier and demanded "Show Nightcrawler where she was last!"

Then Xavier's voice in his head was telling him _Over here_ and the green haired man clamped a hand around his wrist and told him "Fifty feet above that, and remember to open the raft!"

Kurt 'ported them and they appeared about fifteen feet above the water. The other man instantly let go of his wrist and changed his fall into a clean dive while Kurt opened the raft and 'ported himself just slightly upward so he could fall neatly into it. Only after he hit the rubber did he remember the shackles still around the other man's ankles. Would he really be able to swim with them on?

He leaned over the side of the raft and peered into the water. _Please, please, please_… He wasn't sure if he was pleading with God, the other man, or even Jean. After what seemed like a lifetime two heads broke the surface a few yards away and began moving toward him.

"Grab her," the green haired man panted when he reached the raft, "get her up there." Kurt pulled Jean's limp form into the raft, then looked up and saw the Blackbird hovering with its ramp partway open. He took Jean up and left her in Scott's arms before returning for the other man, who was clinging exhaustedly to the raft. He didn't bother hauling him out of the water, he just gripped his shoulders and teleported them both up to the plane.

They appeared just inside the ramp and it closed quickly behind them. The Asian girl Kurt had taken from the cell was handing out dark blue sweat-suits to all the children in damp pajamas, and she handed one to the green-haired man as well. Scott and Bobby were ministering to Jean under Xavier's instruction and Storm was still at the controls. The plane seemed to be flying smoothly. Kurt looked at the ceiling as the children and the green-haired man changed into dry clothes (the latter using him as a privacy screen), then crouched to help one of the smaller ones roll up his sleeve cuffs. The boy stared hard at him and Kurt saw clearly in his mind the image of a card with the words "I'm sorry" and then a boy's-eye-view replay of when the child had nearly puked on Kurt's toes after being teleported out of the cell..

Kurt patted his shoulder. "That's alright. It makes everyone a little sick."

"Nightcrawler, sit down and buckle up," said the green-haired man, who was doing just that. Kurt collapsed into a seat. He didn't care that there was no place to comfortably put his tail, and he didn't care where they were going as long as he didn't have to teleport there. Fatigue hammered at his brain and eyelids, and then next thing he knew Rogue was shaking him gently.

"Kurt, we have to go tell the President about all this, and the Professor wants you to come."

Everyone left the plane except Jean, his rescuee, and the younger children. Xavier was in the lead; there must have been a backup wheelchair in the plane. Kurt obediently followed Rogue and Bobby out of the Blackbird, onto the Whitehouse lawn, and into the Whitehouse itself. Everyone seemed to be looking right through them. "Professor Xavier is doing it," Rogue whispered, "he can show them whatever he wants them to see."

He wondered why he was there as Xavier had them arrange themselves dramatically in the oval office before an oblivious camera crew and a gaggle of aides. _Maybe he wants to scare Mister President, just a little_. He was too busy watching the frozen Secret Service men to listen closely to Xavier's speech to the President, and felt a huge relief when it was over and he could flee back to the plane.

"Next we're going home," Rogue said as they were all strapping in for the last time. Bobby was sitting next to her and they clung to each other's hands as if that would make them safe.


End file.
